Food-Positive Cooking and Blogging

Menu

Fish: Not Just for Fridays (Baked Haddock)

I’m very lucky that there is a fishmonger at my farmer’s market who sells local and wild-caught seafood. I tried this recipe out with some haddock I had bought off of him, but you can use any whitefish. What I enjoyed about this recipe is that it’s a pretty simple dish that won’t eat up a lot of time.

You’re going to need:

2 pounds of fresh haddock filet

1 clove of garlic, chopped

1 yellow onion, chopped

1 tsp. chili powder

½ tsp ground coriander

1 14 oz can of diced tomatoes

1-2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

3 tablespoons of oil

Chopped vegetables (optional)

Salt and pepper, to taste

Serves 2-3

In a pan or large cooking pot, heat two tablespoons of oil. Add the onions, reduce heat to low-medium, and sauté until they start to become translucent. Add the garlic, vegetables (I didn’t use any when I tried this), chili powder, and coriander and stir in well. Add the can of tomatoes and cook for about 10-12 minutes on medium-high heat. To thicken your sauce, slowly add the flour one teaspoon at a time and stir well until desired consistency is reached. If you have tomato paste, feel free to use that to thicken the mixture (all I had when I tried this was flour).

While the tomatoes are is cooking, preheat your oven to 350°F, and coat a glass cooking pan with the rest of the oil. Lay your fish skin-side down on the pan, and sprinkle with salt and pepper (sorry, had to do it). When your sauce is ready, pour it over the fish and spread evenly. Bake for about 20 minutes, until the fish starts to flake. Mine looked like this:

I thought it was good both hot and cold, so it served as part of my lunch at work for several days. Haddock has an exceptionally mellow flavor and almost creamy texture, and it was a good match with the sauce. It should be noted that several institutions list haddock as “vulnerable to extinction” on their scales of conservation status, so eat and buy with care, or seek less endangered fish.

This is a pretty straightforward recipe. I’m going to attempt something a little bolder in the next entry.